Two stories for your weekend consideration:
| A report from the federal Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack has painted a bleak picture for America under such attack: Electricity grids down, uncontrolled fires from exploding gas transport systems, no communication to summon firefighters and if they could come, no water to battle fires. All in city after city after city.
The 200-page report says Americans should look to past incidents, then multiply those impacts by the number of cities that could be hit by such an attack. For example: |
To read the rest: Surviving EMP to depend on preparation.
That’s the future and that’s the theoretical. How about a look at the present?
| Africa food crisis worsens
“It is actually getting worse.” That’s Jacob Kramer with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee talking about the global food crisis. The crisis is hitting east Africa particularly hard. War, drought and poverty have put an estimated 9 to 13 million people in the region in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Kramer says Ethiopia is just one example. “In Ethiopia, the people depending on food aid has increased from 2.2 to about 4.5 million people, and those are staggering numbers.” Kramer says a number of factors are to blame for the crisis. “The missed planting season in the Rift Vally in Kenya because of the political difficulties and flooding in Uganda–this, combined with higher food prices on the world market which make food prices out of reach for a lot of people.” In Somalia, the cost of imported rice increased by up to 350% between the beginning of 2007 and May 2008. In areas of Ethiopia, the price of wheat has more than doubled over a six-month period, and food prices are expected to remain high until the next harvest in October. According to reports, the cost of food has increased 500-percent in some places. Some families have started eating animal food just to survive. Kramer says many poor families are now going from two meals a day, to just one meal a day, if that. |